Just read Brooks’s article. I do agree with much of what he said, and don’t have any intention of climbing into a shell. I had a good conversation with two friends yesterday, one of whom is a black woman and another an older psychologist who supported Bernie Sanders and then spent the last week before the election canvassing in Cleveland for Hillary. I was both shocked and enlightened by their insights. While I’ve never been, nor will likely be, an activist, I do think activists need to be working with party people (the lack of which is part of the problem) in order to be reaching out for the next four years with “disaffected white voters.”

Not being a Democrat or Republican, I don’t mind some upheaval, but it can’t be the idealistic “white liberal youth” platitudes any more than the “closed off elitist” platitudes. Democrats have to be honest and smart communicators to counter the patent dishonesty but hugely successful bumper sticker outreach of Republicans.

I was just overwhelmed by the pandering this year — from EVERYONE — though admittedly on a sliding scale of promising Bandaids-for-the-dead to resurrection by steel-mill smoke. I really had to bite my lip to vote, and not just for President.

As neither a nationalist, nor a religious conservative, I no longer identify as a “Republican.” But in the face of an entirely dysfunctional two-party system and pop-media that have turned the whole thing into little more than “irritainment” programming, we’ve been reduced to choosing between platitudes and jingles. Where were the genuine, forward-looking plans?

Brooks speaks to my own thinking, and to quite a few whom I know. Being “disaffected” isn’t merely a characteristic of White voters; something is fundamentally askew, but it’s not being honestly discussed. This was what I was really trying to get at with, “Work.” The real decision for the future is no longer “right” or “left,” but “closed” or “open.” However, we weren’t offered that choice in this election, not even in the primaries. And to be honest, I don’t know if Americans in general are a patient enough people to care. Technocrats tend to be boring, and it will require shedding some politically expedient, “American” ideological baggage.

And I like the picture too, though it looks like a good way to end up on your back. And my own apologies. (-_^)

To extract one point you made, and respond: “if Americans in general are a patient enough people to care.” The answer is obviously no. More concerning, we don’t think. We live for, crave for, swallow whole whatever bumper sticker salves our particular biases so we don’t have to take responsibility for getting informed, thinking, and communicating that thinking. Then we whine that both parties are the same, which is of course ludicrously false. This is the essence of my frustration, that we are so privileged, so used to our pandered lifestyles, and so ignorant of the lives of the rest of the world, that we whine because the silver spoons we were born in our mouths aren’t perfectly shiny at all times.

As for technocrats, we’ve shown an increasing disdain for intelligence, education, or even thoughtfulness. The smarter you are, the more Americans hate you. It suggests we’ve become a nation of mentally insecure children…like the one that was just elected.

Not sure the turtle would like being on its back. Seems like an assertive type.

“The smarter you are, the more Americans hate you.” And, unfortunately, if you’re a smart woman, they (both men and women who vote, I’d say) hate you even more. Just my two cents from a baby boomer mom of two twenty something daughters who had to to comfort the elder aka mini-me upon finally processing (I’d say accepting but I’m not sure if that will ever happen!) the election results,which took at least a few days.